When the animal rights group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) posted news of both legal and illegal conduct on its website, and publicly supported a variety of tactics in the movement to shut down the notorious animal testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences, they were acting as "generals" in a campaign of "terrorism," the U.S. government argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals last Tuesday.

It doesn't matter that the defendants, dubbed the SHAC 7, were never accused of breaking windows or gluing looks. It doesn't matter that they were never accused of any act of physical violence. It doesn't matter that they only endorsed a variety of tactics in words, speeches, and media interviews.

"This case was never fought on the basis of what actually happened, by and large," said U.S. attorney Glenn J. Moramarco at the hearing. "This case was fought on the battleground of
'should we be held responsible for what other people are doing.'"